TX TX - Jayla Belton, 2, Austin, 24 May 1996

This case makes me madder and madder as time goes on, and it's now been a decade. Some may have heard of it - an adorable, tiny underweight Jayla Belton was dropped off at a home daycare, and was dead by the end of the day. Lacresha Murray, an 11 year old in the home was initially convicted of capital murder, the youngest child in Texas ever to be convicted of that. After a lot of public outrage over the case her case was overturned, and she was freed "with prejudice", meaning she can never face those charges again.

What seems obvious to so many is that Derrick Shaw, Jayla's mother's boyfriend, brought her to the home dying in the morning, and it took her all day to finally die in the emergency room.

Prayers for innocent LaCresha, and prayers for God's sake will someone take enough of a look at this to investigate Derrick Shaw.

I post this today because LaCresha and her family have finally been granted permission to bring a federal lawsuit against the officials who railroaded her.

Prayers for Jayla's soul, and LaCresha's family.

http://www.peopleoftheheart.org/index3.htm

So let me get this straight. The mother's boyfriend brought the child who was already sick to the daycare in the morning and they wrongly convicted an 11 year old of killing her?! What kind of a police department is that?!

It was beyond bizarre, Paradise. If you go and read through the story, the only way to make any sense of it all is to blame the Medical Examiner, Dr Robert Bayardo. He has a reputation for being almost omnicient - he's been right so many times and courageous in the face of public disbelief. He does an autopsy and sticks by his guns, and in the end he's right.

Not this time. Jayla was brought to the emergency room dying. Then, as she was dying the emergency room procedures of excessive and violent CPR were applied, and she was so grossly injured by that procedure that it completely screwed up the autopsy results and made her injuries extremely confusing to delineate.

The timeline of her injuries was completely obscured by emergency room injuries.

Match that, with the fact that LaCresha had been making loud banging sounds in her room with a soccer ball for the hour before Jayla actually died. She bounced soccer balls in her room often, and for some reason, her grandparents became convinced that was the sound of Jayla being beaten. And not the sound they knew very well as a household sound - LaCresha bouncing her soccer ball against the wall.

Then, icing on the cake, LaCresha fully confessed kicking her to death. LaCresha is below average intelligence, 11 years old, and the interrogation broke her and she confessed to "accidentally" killing Jayla by dropping her and kicking her. God bless her. Jayla had marks all over her chest - about two inch long parallel "tracks" of three - that appeared like LaCresha's tennis shoe soles - except Bayardo, God bless HIM this time, kept saying it's similar but not exact. It's not exact. He kept saying those weren't what caused the marks, but they were close enough the jury believed it. It was finger marks from the interlocked hands of the tech who did CPR on her, in the final analysis.

Go figure, Paradise. To anyone who followed this case, it was a horrible tragedy for LaCresha, and for Jayla, and God knows why they won't reopen it and arrest Derrick Shaw for killing Jayla.

It sounds like they're too embarassed to admit they were wrong.

This case was just featured tonight on American Justice on A&E (episode 185). This is the WORST case of prosecutorial negligence I've ever seen, period. I am a doctor, and I simply cannot believe that an 11 year old (even a large one) could have inflicted a grade V liver laceration on a 2 year old as the ME said she did. That is the most severe kind of liver injury and is usually seen in high speed motor vehicle collisions. You are all absolutely right in concluding that Jayla was already dying when dropped off at LaCresha's house. LaCresha clearly described an ill child who was likely bleeding into her abdomen on arrival--she stated in her first police interview that Jayla was "hiding behind the sofa" and was sick and throwing up. Plus, another witness described seeing Jayla's stepfather abuse her in the past. The prosecutor dismissed this piece of evidence, and actually said on air in the program, "What parent hasn't grabbed their child by the arm and thrown them on the bed?"!! :furious:

Given that 1) the murder of a 2 year old is most likely to be committed by her own parents, 2) the child was already ill on arrival at La Cresha's home, 3) a witness described seeing her stepfather abuse her in the past, 4) the child's mother deliberately ignored a request from La Cresha's mother not to leave her child at the home that day, 5) La Cresha's confession was obviously false and coerced, and 6) I seriously doubt that La Cresha could have inflicted the injuries that the M.E. described, all of the evidence aside from the M.E.'s report points to the victim's parent(s). The M.E. was obviously wrong. I just can't believe that Jayla's killer is being allowed to go free because this stubborn, foolish prosecutor has tunnel vision and is ignoring the facts.

I saw the American Justice Episode. I was just stunned. All the interrogation of Lacresha showed that eventully she gave in. Not once did the police have anyone in the room to assist Lacresha in understanding what was going on. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have been cracking up at the thought of a judge asking a 11yo girl if she understood the charges being brought up against her and the consequences.

My heart goes out to Lacresha. I pray she has since found her way.

[video=youtube;XDm1J6P-1CI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDm1J6P-1CI[/video]

She was shot by an off-duty police officer last week in Copperas Cove. She was smart about how she took cover and asked bystanders to call 911 and thankfully she survived.